My books #6: Go Gos Are Go Go!

Let’s Go!

They’re the latest craze to hit the streets!


They’re taking over playgrounds and classrooms all over the country!


They’re the coolest thing since caps!


What are they?


Go Gos!

If you want to know more, all you need is right here in this exciting new book!

Well, if that doesn’t get you excited, what will?

‘Go Gos’ is an unusual book from my back catalogue. I had started working full-time as a teacher in the autumn of 1996 and then the opportunities to write, that I had been waiting for whilst working freelance, began to present themselves. So, during the half term holiday I found myself signed up to write both a book and a short story. Suddenly, for two short weeks, I was effectively working full-time as a writer to make all my deadlines.

Puffin Books had published a book about the POGs craze earlier that year and, having seen the children at the school where I worked playing with Go Gos Crazybones (effectively just a plastic version of knucklebones) I decided to pitch a Go Gos book. I had a meeting with my editor at Penguin’s offices in London and, lo and behold, the book was commissioned!

As I say, Go Gos were really just brightly-coloured bits of shaped plastic with which children played games likes knucklebones. In my book, I developed into the history of the game of knucklebones itself whilst also making up other games for children to play. A week later, the book was finished and saw print the following year.

It didn’t sell particularly well and in the end was pulped, something which I have never had happen to me before or since (so far, fingers crossed). However, some might say that pulping the book was a little premature. In the last few years Go Gos have seen a resurgence in popularity and are available on newsagents’ counters all over the country.

If anyone else has the bright idea of bringing out a book to support the craze, just remember - I was there first.

PS – By rights, ‘My books #6’ should have been about ‘Bloodbones’ but more on that when I get to... ‘My books #13’!